The militias of free pardos and morenos and the fuero militar
Free men of colour in the Spanish Caribbean served in battalions of their own with commissioned officers of their own colour. The Cuban militia rulebook gave every militiaman the fuero militar, exemption from municipal burdens and hospital care on veteran terms, and ordered that officers of the pardo and moreno battalions never be insulted. The same law barred them from the cadet route, paid moreno officers less than pardo officers, and shut them out of the military widows' fund.
Why this wins its question: The free-coloured militias of Spanish America are usually handled in one of two ways: skipped, or produced as proof that the Spanish empire was racially open. This object quotes the rulebook instead, and the rulebook argues both sides by itself. It names the three battalions and their towns, grants the military fuero to every militiaman, exempts him from municipal burdens and guardianships, puts him in the hospital on veteran terms, and orders in so many words that officers of the pardo and moreno battalions be treated with esteem and that nobody be permitted to insult them by word or deed. Then, in the same chapters, it pays moreno officers less than pardo officers, bars every battalion of colour from the cadet entry that the army ordinance reserved to nobles, and — in a second printing, from the royal declaration of 1773 — admits to the military widows' fund only the white staff attached to those battalions. Article numbers and peso figures for all of it, from documents of the period.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
The corps were part of the ordinary establishment, not an auxiliary afterthought. Chapter I of the Cuban militia regulation sets the footing of the island's disciplined militias at five infantry battalions of whites — the first two known as regiments of volunteers of Havana infantry, the other three of Cuba and Bayamo, Puerto del Príncipe and Cuatro Villas — together with two battalions of free pardos, named Pardos libres de la Habana and Pardos libres de Cuba y Bayamo, and one battalion of free morenos, the Batallón de Morenos libres de la Habana, besides a cavalry regiment and the Dragoons of Matanzas. The total establishment is given as 6,700 infantry places and 800 of cavalry and dragoons.
The chapter headed "Del fuero y goces de estos cuerpos" opens by granting the military fuero to every militiaman: "Todo soldado miliciano gozará el fuero militar, asi como lo tiene declarado en mi Real nombre el conde de Ricla desde el dia de la formacion de estas milicias" — with the sergeant-major, lieutenant-colonel and colonel made responsible that nobody shelters under it who is not entitled, and with a standing order that no member of these corps fail in the respect due to the ordinary justice, "contra la cual nunca podrán hacer resistencia".
The privileges attached are concrete civil ones. No officer, sergeant, corporal or soldier of militia may have an office thrust on him that serves as a burden, nor guardianships against his will, nor be given troops or baggage to quarter without precise necessity; and when the militia serves in garrison or campaign all its sick are received and cured in the hospitals as the veteran troops are, at a stated discount from their daily pay, which a later royal order of 11 February 1795 reduced to the same real and cuartillo charged to a veteran soldier.
A separate chapter states the jurisdictional privilege in full: all colonels, officers, sergeants, corporals and soldiers of these regiments enjoy the military fuero, civil and criminal, and the ordinary justice may not hear their civil or criminal causes, "ni otro juez, ni tribunal alguno" — only the governors of the plazas of Havana and Cuba and their lieutenants, each for the militias of his jurisdiction, with appeal to the Captain General, who is to give judgement with the auditor de guerra. The chapter also grants exemption from municipal offices and charges, guardianships and depositarías imposed against their will.
One article addresses the standing of the officers of colour directly: "Los oficiales de los batallones de pardos y morenos, serán tratados con estimacion: à ninguno se permitirá ultrajarlos de palabra, ni obra; y entre los de sus respectivas clases, serán distinguidos y respetados." It is a rule about insult, issued in a slave society, in favour of men whose commissions the same society was disposed not to recognise.
The wartime pay articles put a price on the difference between the three categories, and the object reports the difference rather than the equality. The commander of the pardo battalions is to have forty pesos a month, each captain thirty, each lieutenant twenty-five and each second-lieutenant twenty, while for the flag-bearers, sergeants, corporals and soldiers the regulation assigns "los mismos que en el capítulo 4, artículo 9 dejo señalados para las de igual clase de los blancos". The commander of the morenos of Havana is to have thirty-eight pesos, each captain twenty-eight, each lieutenant twenty-two and each second-lieutenant eighteen. Equal rates for the ranks below officer; a lower officer scale for the morenos than for the pardos.
The route to a commission was closed at one end and left open at the other. "Nunca puede haber cadete alguno en los batallones de pardos y morenos: todos pasarán por la escala de cabos á sargentos, y de allí á subtenientes" — no cadet, which in the general army ordinance was the entry reserved to the noble, and therefore no shortcut; the exception is the man who in war performs some very distinguished and notorious action, which is to be rewarded in due proportion, the escudo de ventaja remaining reserved for acts of particular intrepidity and brilliant valour. Promotion from the ranks was the only ordinary road, and it was a road.
A second, independent printing shows the limit that mattered most to a family. Colón de Larriátegui's compilation of military jurisdiction prints article XXII of the royal declaration on the Monte Pío Militar sent to the Indies on 20 July 1773: of the militia regiments and battalions of whites formed in Cuba, Puerto Rico "ú otros parages de América", not only the sergeants-major and adjutants but all other officers on continuous pay are to be comprehended in the discounts for the fund — but of the regiments and battalions of militias of pardos and morenos "solo deberán ser incluidos en los descuentos para el expresado Monte los Individuos de la Plana mayor de Blancos" attached to them by the king. The pension for widows and orphans followed the white staff officers and not the officers of colour whose battalions they were attached to.
The preamble states the crown's motive without dressing it up: the corps were raised in Cuba "para la defensa de las haciendas, vidas y religion de mis muy fieles vasallos". The rights in this rulebook were the price of garrison duty in an island the Bourbon monarchy had just lost and recovered, and they were granted to men whose service the defence of a slaveholding colony required. Both halves of that sentence are on the record here.
What is read here is the Havana government press reprint of 1833, whose title page states that the regulation was approved by royal cédula of 19 January 1769, and whose footnotes carry later royal orders of 1773, 1774 and 1795 and are followed from page 48 by a separate Real declaración on essential points of the reglamento. The title-page reading of those dates comes from the volume's search layer and not from a page image, which is why the printing history sits at 0.85; the articles quoted above were all read as page scans. Whether the chapter granting the full civil and criminal fuero, which speaks of "estos regimientos", was applied in the same terms to the pardo and moreno battalions is not settled by the text read here, and claim four is held at 0.8 for that reason.